ABI acknowledged that the use of geo-location tracking technology in mobile devices is currently under “intense scrutiny” but reckons this will not get in the way of the market blossoming in the future.

Senior analyst Patrick Connolly said: “This temporary debate will not prevent the future success of location-based services, marketing and advertising, all of which will be based on location analytics – the aggregation and analysis of location information to identify trends that will enable new services and more effective advertising.”

The firm said that the “real power” of location-based services will come from a combination of analytics and advertising, when consumers can be anonymously targeted through social, geographic, physical and emotional indicators.

Practice director Dominque Bonte added: “While the location analytics market is relatively new, it has been evolving for a number of years and has been the major driver for recent location-related acquisitions by the likes of Apple, Google, Nokia, Facebook and Microsoft. Eventually, location will become commoditised and will be treated as just another piece of demographic information. Consequently, location analytics will become the core provider of value in location-based advertising.”

The full report can be purchased from ABI Research here.